28 March, 2007

So, let me please apologize for my lack of blogposts the past few weeks. I have absolutely no excuse. However, it has come up to bite me in the ass, as now I have to update the past 3 weekends (time is flying by) of Gruyéres, Lausanne, Neuchatel, Basel, Venice, Padova, aaaaand Portugal`s Lisbon and Sintra. Wow. 3 weekends, 3 countries, 4 languages, 8 cities, 12, 19, 39... That is alot of numbers.

Let us start from the beginning. Basel, Neuchatel, Gruyéres, Lausanne. This was all one weekend broke into 2 days as day trips. No expenses for hostels, just food, drink, and whatever museum or castel we wanted to see. Basel was...interesting. We ate at a restaurant called Gifthüttli, which means Poisin cabin, but it was amazing. In my love for Rösti, I hate a huge platter adorned with a sausage, just the way I like it. It is a very pretty large schwiezer-deutsch town (swiss-german). I posted the pictures in all my links, so people should be able to see the beautiful Rathaus and the Rhine R. By the way, this trip was with Kevin, Molly, Amy. Before we headed home (as it was only a day thing, 3 hours away), Kevin and I wanted to grab a brew at the oldest Brewpub in Switzerland, the Fischerstube that serves their own Ueli Bier, quite delish. On the way home, we decided to walk around Neuchatel and watch the sunset over Lake Neuchatel. Its a rather quaint french speaking town, known mainly for their university. The lake is nice although the swans get rowdy if you try to feed them granola, so dont.

The next day we headed out around 8 for an arrival in Gruyéres around 11. Its an intensly small town with only one road, perched on the top of a hill in a green valley flanked on all sides by alps. Very beautiful. This time, the roster was supposed to be the same as the day before, with Amy, Molly and Kevin. However Amy decided she was quote unquote tired. So last minute, I convince Meghan to steal Amys Eurail pass, which they dont check IDs with, and we headed off for the Swiss Cheese capitol. First stop: the swiss cheese factory. We took a tour, and our tickets to get in were none other than pieces of Gruyéres cheese, aged 6, 8, 10 mos. old. The 8 was the best. After the tour, we hiked up the hill to the actual town walked the one street to the end, where we discovered(knew it was there) a sweet castle. Amazing mountanous and valley views, a theme I am beginning to see a trend of in Switzerland. Everywhere. After the castle, we went to a bar outside of the Giger museum. Ahh the Giger museum. We did not pay the 8CHF entry fee, but it may have been worth a laugh. HR Giger, the swiss surrealist who envisioned Alien and Species movie series has a museum in Gruyéres dedicated to fantasy eroticism. Weird. The bar however was cool, and was fashioned with mold casts of alien spines everywhere. They made up the ceiling, the chairs, table legs. There were mutated baby heads coming out from the wall, all in all a wholly odd experience, but one worth having. After this, we headed home around 4 and stopped in Laussanne to get some Kebab, walk around, have a drink, and watch the sunset over Lac Leman. Tres beau. This blog post will get incredibly long if I include all 3 weekends in here, so I will cut it short and do the other 2 soon.

I have just realized the extent of my travels here. By the time I reach the USA, I will have hit Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Belgium, Czech Republic, and Hungary. 11. Damn. This weekend is Bled, Slovenia, I cannot wait.